Loro Parque

I’m not really and animal lover.  I only had two pets as a child, a goldfish and, briefly, a hedgehog.  I was not one of the thousands of people in the 80’s who complained when Hale & Pace appeared to microwave a cat live on prime time TV.  Nevertheless I’m a bit iffey about zoos and, whilst the most disturbing and unnatural thing about circuses are the clowns, I think performing animals come a close second.

Anyway, on Tenerife we took a trip to Loro Parque which as the name suggests (if you speak Spanish) started with parrots but is now home to a range of exotic animals.  They live in beautifully designed and maintained enclosures set into densely planted parkland.  There is an aquarium complete with the obligatory glass tube through the shark tank and they have a penguin colony in an amazing arctic landscape where it is, of course, snowing.

The highlights of the park are the various animal shows that occur at set times though out the day. In the Parrot show the birds free fly round and round the auditorium.  How they train them not to cover the audience in parrot poo remains a troubling mystery.

The best shows are the Dolphins and the Orca Whales.  These take place in two amphitheatres with huge glass sided tanks and tiered seating. Tent like structures cover the seating to keep off the sun or, in our case, the rain. In both of these shows there seemed to be a fantastic bond between the dolphins or the whales and their trainers.  It looked like they were all having fun and that there was more to their relationships than just buckets of fish.  In the dolphin show one of the trainers jumped into the tank and sank feet first. The next moment he was propelled vertically to about 30 feet above the water by two dolphins with a nose under each foot.  How do you do that and would you have time to make a wish if one of the dolphins had a bad day?

The other thing that came across was how perfectly these creatures have evolved to suit their environment. The glass walls of the tanks allowed you to see how effortlessly they moved through the water and the raw power they can generate simply by wagging their tails. There can’t be many of the millions of visitors to Loro Park who do not leave without a feeling that that Whales and Dolphins are far too clever to eat.

Dave C